


Cap Comes Marching In

by Miss_Katherine (for_steggy)



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Steggy - Freeform, and I'm assuming he went back to the canon timeline, don't argue w/me argue with Markus and McFeely, every stan has written at least one version of this somehow, we really do keep winning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21603550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_steggy/pseuds/Miss_Katherine
Summary: Peggy opened the door, and he immediately put his hands up. “I know I’m late,” he said. “I can explain…Sort of.”Another Steve-showing-up-at-Peggy’s-house-Endgame-fic. Make it a million and one.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 14
Kudos: 115





	Cap Comes Marching In

Peggy opened the door, and he immediately put his hands up. “I know I’m late,” he said. “I can explain…Sort of.”

She looked at him, how he was staring at her as if _she_ was the one who might not be real.

Peggy didn’t pull a gun, like the faint voice in the back of her mind was telling her to, she just stood there, frozen in place, and let out a shuddering breath. It seemed like the world was spinning, spinning, and then gone.

*

After an undetermined amount of time she was mildly aware that everything felt warm and safe, and there was a scent…something she hadn’t smelled since—

_Steve._

Her eyes snapped open and she twisted, heart pounding.

For a split second nothing computed. Then came the realization that she was in someone’s lap. The next thing she knew she was staring into a pair of familiar blue eyes. She went very, very still.

Steve suspected that she didn't believe any of this was real, and he was right. The thought that it might be real never even entered her brain.

Peggy gently ran her hands over his face and he shut his eyes. Uncanny. All she could think was that she must have been beaten half to death; what else could warrant such an unnatural amount of morphine to actually _feel_ him?

There were a few more lines on his face, to be sure, but mostly it was his expression—care worn—that had changed. Which was odd, since it was a hallucination. She supposed it must be a reflection on her own state of being.

The tears flowed down her face unheeded and she looked away, shaking her head.

He put a hand under her chin and made her look at him, his expression tight, concerned, but loving all the same.

Bloody hell, it all felt so real.

She leaned in and kissed him. Peggy knew she shouldn’t, that it would make it that much harder when she would inevitably wake in a sterile room with Mr. Jarvis looming over her. But his eyes were baring into her soul.

His breath hitched and he melted into her just like she always suspected he would. He let out a heavy sigh as she continued to press chaste kisses to his eyes, his cheeks, his chin, and for some reason it made her sob harder.

Emotion eventually wore her out until finally she rested her head in the crook of his neck and drifted off, head pounding.

*

When Peggy awoke again, not in a hospital room but in her own bed, her confusion intensified. She smelled something coming from the kitchen.

Gun in hand, she cautiously crept down the hall. Looking in the living room revealed the extra blankets from the closet arranged neatly at the end of the couch. Mentally she prepared and turned the corner.

When her eyes met with his back, the gun clattered to the ground.

“Am I dead?”

He spun around from the stove to look at her, and seeing the intense blue of his eyes again made her almost flinch. “Not unless I am,” he said breathlessly.

“Oh.” There was a pause, her expression unreadable.

Steve, face falling, seemed to realize his mistake. “No, Peggy—” he came forward and grasped her hand lightly, “I forgot—I didn't mean…”

She was breathing hard, staring down at her fingers in his large hand. “It’s me Peggy, it’s really me—“ Then before Steve knew what was happening, she had her hand on the stove.

“What are you doing!?” he startled, snatching it away.

“Just making sure,” she winced. Gripping her hand, she looked up at him again, recognition in her eyes.

 _“Steve?”_ Her face contorted with shock, and after a moment of tense waiting on his part, she launched herself into his arms, practically crashing them into the kitchen table. She wrapped herself around him laughing and crying at the same time. The eggs burned and started to smoke more with every desperate kiss she planted on him.

“Peggy—Peggy—the eggs are burning—Peggy,” he said, laughing on the verge of tears, relief washing over him.

“Blast the—eggs—Steve—” He didn't argue, but quickly turned the stove off.

He walked them into the living room and sat on the couch. Peggy stared at him perched partially on his lap, and reached to touch his face again. She had never been accused of being clingy, but these were extenuating circumstances.

He kept still, letting her inspect him, a watery smile on his face. This was certainly not the boyish figure she knew; There was something lurking there, a heaviness behind the eyes. He looked like he hadn't rested in a good long while.

“I’m sorry, Peggy,” he said looking away from her.

“Whatever for, darling?” she asked seriously, taking his face between her hands so that he would look at her.

“I was pig-headed. You deserved better.”

She began to protest. “Steve, what are you—“

“I spent so long trying to prove something to myself,” he explained. “I’ve gone over it a thousand times, and I could have given you the coordinance. I would still have crashed, but maybe you could have found me. I—”

“Steve, darling, you did the right thing, I understand—“

Again, the endearment nearly made him lose his train of thought. But he had to say the next part. “It wasn't fair to you. I didn't realize until much later—”

“It’s alright, really—”

“Peggy,” he said, using his serious Captain America voice. “It’s not alright. I thought I was doing the right thing, and I guess part of me didn't think I was important enough to be missed…but I took away your choice. I know that now.”

She stopped trying to argue and finally gave way to the choked sob that had been steadily rising in her throat. What he said was true. She had waited for that elusive figure to put down the shield, and in the end he hadn’t. She had lived in the shadow of that decision

During the war, Peggy had been fighting to go home, but Steve had been fighting to prove something, if only to himself. After he was gone she put him on a pedestal to save herself the pain of thinking he had any real flaws.Unknowingly it had changed her—she had exampled herself after it, and It made her unsatisfied. It stopped her from living. Just like Steve.

If anyone else had accused her darling of what he just did, Peggy would have refuted them until her dying day. But now he was here, actually acknowledging it.

The illusion broke.

She buried her face in her palms and started to shake. She hadn't allowed herself to truly feel since…

Well, since before.

Steve folded her in his arms. He’d had plenty of time to think about the kind of woman he had lost.

It seemed his whole life everyone, even the people closest to him, were always wanting him and asking him to change. Peggy had never asked him to be anything other than what he was. She had taken him as he was.

She had wanted him before the serum—something he only ever realized once he time traveled and saw his picture on her desk, the one of him _before_.

It had always been his dream to come back to her. And then the idea of time travel had been discussed. It was the solution he had fantasized about for years, and now that it was an option…

He had about five excellent reasons why he absolutely _should not,_ and yet the reality of having a life was maybe the most startling, the most scary. He could really, finally have something he wanted.

Thankfully after a somewhat gruffly emotional talk with Bucky, and a very interesting conversation he had returning the time stone to 2012, the choice made itself. There would be no tinge of selfish guilt to his happiness.

A hole had been left in time, and he’d come to fill it.

As Peggy clung to him, she couldn't help but think she had imagined this exact scenario more times than she could count. But it didn’t prepare for the reality, because this was real, vital flesh and blood she was clinging to.

Steve was home, and for the first time in a very long time, she had come home too.

Wiping at her cheeks, she pulled back. “Darling,” she whispered wearily. Restfully.

Steve knew he had one more thing to say before he lost himself in hearing her call him that name, before he lost himself in the way she was looking at him, the way he’d always dreamed of—

“Peggy, I…”Noticing his distress, she searched his face, a crease forming between her brows. “I’m not exactly the same person I was…” he said, stopping, trying to find the right words. “I’m not the person you knew.”

As he said it, relief flooded her features. She looked at him seriously, a small smile playing at her lips. “That’s not true.”

Obviously he hadn't expected her to say that, and the next words died on his lips. His eyebrows went together in confusion.

“Always so dramatic,” she teased. He clearly didn’t understand.

“Steve," she said, clarifying, "whatever happened _to_ you is not you _._ You have always blamed yourself for what was beyond your control, and you have pain. But that’s not your fault. It’s not a sin. You can get through it, live with it… _if_ you don't keep it all to yourself.”

She pulled his hands into hers, and he looked at her like a drowning man. “Give me half, darling. I can take it.”

He let out a choked sob and buried his face in the junction of her neck. She thought to herself that it might just have been exactly what he needed to hear.

In all of Peggy’s imaginings, there had never been half so much crying, but it confirmed that she couldn't predict everything. The comfort in that was palpable.

She wondered where he had been, of course. How could she not? But truthfully, she was afraid to ask.

A sigh must have escaped her, because he leaned back and looked up at her. “What is it?” he asked.

“I was just wondering if you'll ever tell me,” she said, and it wasn’t necessary to clarify.

He smiled, but there was a tightness around the eyes. “I will. But for now, I just want to hold my girl.” He buried his face in her hair and breathed deeply.

Peggy felt herself actually flush. It was unreasonable, and totally unfair to the rest of the population be this stupidly happy.

They stayed that way, for how long she couldn't have said, but once an idea came to her she sat up and made move to walk away. Steve made a sound of questioning, mild protest.

She smiled to herself, but gave him an unreadable look and disappeared into the other room.

He had felt before that it would be impolite to peek around, but now they had at least talked let his eyes roam about the room. They landed on the record player in the corner. He looked through her collection, and with a smirk found the exact song he’d played countless times in the future thinking about her.

It had been almost masochistic at the time, sitting alone in his dark apartment, listening to those lyrics that spoke of reunion, welcoming the pain, if only to remember what he’d lost. But it was fitting now; that longing was finally being fulfilled.

He positioned the needle on the record as she reemerged in _the_ red dress. “Guess you beat me to it,” she said, and he pulled her into his arms. They swayed gently to the music, and she couldn't help it—more tears, happy tears, rolled down her cheeks.

“You know, I still don't know how to dance,” he said softly.

“We have time,” she whispered, and they both realized that it was true. They would really have a lifetime.

Peggy looked up, locking eyes with him, and just as the the soft warbling voice began to sing, their lips met once more.

_Never thought that you would be_

_standing here so close to me_

_there’s so much I feel that I should say_

_but words can wait_

_until some other day_

FIN


End file.
